The present invention relates to improvements in plural cartridge holders and is particularly directed to cartridge holders adapted to releasably secure cartridges for fast and simultaneous loading of the cartridges into the chambers of a revolver, or the like.
Initial efforts to develop a quick reload device for revolvers antedate the present invention by many decades, as evidenced by the disclosure in 1879 of Bell U.S. Pat. No. 223,100, and have continued periodically up to the present year. Such activity has been stimulated by police officers and the like who have insisted that such a device be foolproof and positive in its operation because their lives may at any moment depend upon its operation.
As a loading device of this type must be manually preloaded, some type of holding means must be incorporated in its structure to hold the cartridges therein until they are released during the loading or reloading of the revolver. Therefore, a holding means as well as release means are common to devices of this nature; and the release generally requires the application of a force directed inwardly or outwardly in some manner. Devices developed prior to the present invention have failed to satisfactorily resolve problems associated with the hold and release mechanisms.
One factor which precluded satisfactory operation of earlier devices was the failure to guard against premature release. The plural cartridge holders of Baucum U.S. Pat. No. 2,399,904, Hanley U.S. Pat. No. 2,944,359, and Olson U.S. Pat. No. 3,197,907, for example, are all especially subject to accidental release of one or more cartridges by the accidental application of pressure to the release mechanism. Baucum attempts to minimize the occasions of premature release by providing special carrying containers for his cartridge holder; however, unless care is exercised from the time immediately preceding installation into the container, and from the time following removal from the container up to insertion in the revolver's chambers, accidental release can still occur.
The earlier Bell device provides a potential solution to the accidental release problem by employing unitary construction, in that the cartridge holder's cartridge-receiving chambers and the locking mechanism are one solid piece and, hence, the release can be obtained only by holding the cartridges while the holder is rotated. It will be seen that this is a combination of events which is unlikely to occur inadvertently. However, this solution is purchased with unitary construction which presents other severe problems, e.g. biasing means accentuates a cartridge tilt problem hereinafter more fully described, and some potential for premature release remains.
Another factor that precludes satisfactory operation of earlier devices is that when the release force is applied in haste, it can often be directed off center or in some manner so as to cause one or more of the cartridges to become misaligned or cocked in the loading device. Since these devices, with few exceptions, depend upon the forces of gravity to carry the cartridges into the revolver's cylinder chambers, such cartridge cocking can result in cartridge recapture by the loading device when the releasing force is relaxed. The net result is that one or more of the revolver's cylinder chambers might not receive a cartridge.
The device shown in the Fordham et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,541,716 presents at least a partial solution to the cartridge cocking problem by using a release mechanism that positively urges the cartridges slightly past a retaining O-ring; hence, even when some force is applied off center or in some other manner so as to cause one or more of the cartridges to become tilted or cocked, they cannot become re-engaged by the O-ring holding means when the force is relaxed. However, the remainder of the cartridge expulsion still depends upon the forces of gravity and, hence, the problem is not fully resolved. Moreover the solution is obtained by adopting means susceptible to premature release.
Yet another difficulty with some of the earlier devices is caused by the use of resilient washers, such as O-rings or the like, which require either a very substantial degree of flexing during operation or are adversely affected by extreme temperature vacillations and, thereby, suffer from fatigue rapidly and become inoperable.
Even though the problems of premature release, unitary construction, partial recapture of cartridges, tilted cartridges which fail to clear the holder, and other problems not stated reveal serious deficiencies in earlier devices, perhaps the most important problem, common to all earlier devices, is the tilting of the cartridges in the holder which make cartridge entry into the revolver's cylinder chambers difficult and, thereby consumes precious time.
Each of the earlier devices retains cartridges in the holder by clamping the flanges of the cartridges in various ways. Since the mass of each cartridge is not given lateral support, each cartridge is urged or permitted to tilt away from the center of its chamber. Rapid delivery of a round from the cartridge holder to the revolver's cylinder chambers requires not only registration with the spatial alignment of the cylinders, but also with the angle of entry. Cartridge tilt within the cartridge holder operates to diminish either one of these relationships or both. Moreover, the absence of lateral support increases the ability of an external force to tilt a cartridge in its holder chamber or to dislodge the cartridge from the holder.